OWNER: Dan
Aykroyd and Donna Dixon
LOCATION: Woodrow Wilson Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $30,000 / month
SIZE: 4,828 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Gorgeous English Country celebrity compound behind the gates for total
privacy. Extraordinary taste & style, furnished in turn-key condition, fabulous ground, superb pool.
YOUR
MAMAS NOTES: For some reason, Your Mama has increasing amounts of
information on celebrity owned houses that are available for short and
long term lease. For example, we have previously discussed homosexual
boy band graduate
Lance Bass' house of two swimming pools, we've discussed
Faye Dunaway's West Hollywood hideout, and a hundred moons ago, we discussed the spectacular
Runyon Canyon residence of
Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal (parents of famous
sibs Maggie and Jake). Today we're going to be letting it fly about venerable comedian and original cast member of
Saturday Night Live Dan
Aykroyd and actress
wifey Donna Dixon's allegedly haunted house high in the Hills of Hollywood.
The
secluded "English Country" style residence has a long history of
celebrity owners including Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. The property was
also called home by one of the most famous mamas that ever was, the
corpulent and hugely talented Cass Elliot from the legendary folk rock
group The Mamas and the Papas.
Listing information for the 4,828
square foot house indicates there are 5 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms
(property records show 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms), and is available on
short term lease for $30,000 per month, fully furnished. Listing
information shows the couple is willing to negotiate the price on a long
term rental. Interestingly, no one seems to want to lease this house.
Listing information Your Mama received from a very smart and talented
realtor in the valley we'll call Big Bird shows the property has been on
the rental market for more than 450 days, which is a very long time.
Oh
hunnies, with all due respect to the
Aykroyd/Dixon
household, Your Mama could not be paid $30,000 a month to live up in
this house. And it's not because of that awful kitchen where that horrid
and eyeball assaulting floral wallpaper has been stuck to every flat
surface in the room including the damn ceiling. Oh, no. The reason Your
Mama would not be found sleeping up in this house is because the house
is reported to be haunted.
Of course, Your Mama has no personal experience of the house being haunted, but Mister
Aykroyd, a man with a huge and
well known fascination of all things paranormal,
claims himself that the house is inhabited by apparitions, stating that a poltergeist has gotten into bed with him (what!?!), turned on the
Stairmaster, and moved jewelry across the dresser. He also said, "I'm sure it's Mama Cass because you get the feeling it's a big ghost."
Children,
back in our university days, Your Mama lived in a haunted house, and
let us tell you, there was no peace to be found in that house. That damn
ghost would rattle things, hide things and STEAL things. Yes, we said
steal things. I'm telling you the honest truth here babies. Your Mama
came home from Latin class one day to find all the drinking cups in the
house gone. GONE. Another day we returned home to find all the flatware
had vanished. After having a crazy fat lady come over and do a
séance
in the middle of the night during which the entire second floor of the
house heated up to more 90 degrees and the walls began to sweat, Your
Mama packed up and moved our belongings out of that scary house right
quick.
Anyhoo,
despite our passionate love of white sofas, Your Mama finds most of the
interior photos of this house to be done up in a boring Pottery Barn
101 style that has collided with a frumpy British woman. Except for
that amazing library, which looks like something marvelous and decadent
out of a mad
Count's
castle in Bavaria, or maybe the library in a massive 16-room Park
Avenue palace inhabited by an educated and bohemian heiress and her
well-traveled and well-read male companion.
The flat and grassy
backyard area certainly provides enough space to run the dogs and
exercise the children until they drop from exhaustion, and the natural
stone pool deck appears to be sufficiently sunny. Your Mama is certainly
not keen on that massive chunk of lattice work we see on the end of the
house, but we do imagine it's a sun dappled and cool spot to suck down
gin and tonics while the children frolic in the pool with their various
nannies and security personnel.
Property records reveal that in addition to this Hollywood Hills house, The Canadian born Mister
Aykroyd,
a co-founder of the House of Blues empire, appears to maintain another
Los Angeles residence on Selma Avenue, which records indicate he owns in
partnership with his brother Peter, an actor and psychic researcher,
whatever that is. We also located residences for Mister
Aykroyd in on East 89
th
Street in New York City, as well as a property on Martha's Vineyard, a
favorite East Coast hangout for the rich, famous and discreet. Some
reports say that Mister
Aykroyd also maintains a summer home in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, around
Loughborough Lake.
A March 2002 report in
Forbes
stated that the couple had put their Hollywood Hills house on the
market for $2,500,000. However, property records reveal that the famous
couple continue to own the property.
Your Mama wishes the couple
all the luck in the world getting this house leased out to someone very
rich who does not mind having a phantom crawl into bed with them at
night. Certainly in the the strange and eccentric sprawl of Los Angeles,
there has to be at least a couple of people curious to know what it's
like to live with the ghost of Mama Cass, right?
In 1964, Adler founded and co-owned Dunhill Records which counted his wife Shelley Fabares among its signed artists. In 1967, he sold Dunhill for three million dollars to ABC Records. Later in 1967, he founded Ode Records. In June 1967, Adler helped to produce the Monterey International Pop Festival, as did Terry Melcher.
In 1967, he was featured in the article below in "The Beat" magazine of March 25, 1967 alongside Brian Wilson and Bobby Jameson, a producee of Adler's who was an early suspect in the Tate murders. Adler is quoted therein as saying
Coincidentally, Sharon's Playboy pictoral came out this same week in 1967. While she went on to become the victim of one of the most heinous crimes of all time, Bobby went on to become a Laurel Canyon acid dealer, but is since many years clean and sober. You can see his blog here. 
